


too sinful, won't listen

by tiend



Series: writing wednesday prompts [8]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Carbonite, Child Soldiers, Gen, aulk, finfolk, interregnum space, unqueens, virtue in perigee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-29
Updated: 2018-08-29
Packaged: 2019-07-04 02:25:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15831831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiend/pseuds/tiend
Summary: for finish-the-clone-wars prompt 'disagreement' - the Jedi need something from the Interregnum, but the unqueen has no intention of letting him have what he wants. The clone troopers don't quite understand why until their local translator shows them.





	too sinful, won't listen

The Jedi General’s face was impassive as he watched the native queen walk out of the parley tent, functionaries and bodyguards of both species swept along in her wake. Her face wasn’t human, but between it and her rigid posture he didn’t need the Force to sense her disapproval. It was the third day of negotiations, and the third day she’d walked out. The Republic needed that moon for a supply depot, and every day she delayed was another day she risked being deposed in the name of wartime expediency. One of her minor functionaries bowed to her, and broke away from the party to venture into the clone camps.

Genet Company had stuck to their billet. It was raining, a cold drizzle that got into their blacks; a good time to stay inside, maintain their kit, play sabaac, and not get shot at. Not that they’d been shot at since they landed here; if anything, all the locals were disconcertingly friendly. They looked up when their interpreter hustled in, but most looked away again. They’d gotten used to it in the last few weeks; it was an aulk, one of the species native to this system. It looked a cross between a heron, an owl, and a seal, and smelled fusty in the damp.

“No, no,” it muttered to itself as it made its way to the captain’s quarters. “No good.” It’d been in the parley tent today; some sort of religious duty.

“Bad news, Lump?” called out Sabot. Its name translated to something like “a person who sits on the banks of history and watches the water” and was not pronounceable by human throats. It had gurgled a hoot of aulkish laughter at its nickname.

“No, no,” it said. “Jedi.”

“What’s the general up to now?” asked Gantry. The sabaac game paused, as the players’ ears pricked up.

“Not listen to unqueen, not listen to me,” said Lump. “Jedi cannot go.”

“Still stuck on that, are they?”

The aulk bobbed its head in its version of a nod. “Tell captain.” It went down the corridor, and out of sight.

The sticking point, as Genet understood it, was that the unqueen - representing both finfolk and aulks - refused to let their general even fly over the projected site for the supply depot. Genet and the rest of the 981st Engineers had done an initial survey, but their general had been forbidden to even break atmo. He, the Jedi, and presumably the Republic, did not find that acceptable. The unqueen did not give one single flying fuck about what the Jedi thought, and had said so in nearly those exact words. She’d also said something about war crimes, although by then her accent had thickened too much for anyone to make it out. Kebiin Company had had duty in the parley grounds that day, and the helmet footage had been a hot commodity.

Lump came back, its featherfur less ruffled. Their captain knew his job.

“Pray for tomorrow,” it said, shaking itself out. “Small hope.”

“You tried to talk to our general?” said Gantry.

“Even tried show,” it fluted, sadly. “Not leave tent.”

“You tried to show him something?” said Sabot, who’d had a run of shitty hands and was tired of being inside. “Can you show us?”

“Yes,” said the aulk. “Show, yes.”

A small group left the billet, clones driven outside by boredom or curiousity. The aulk went first, its stooped gait leading them through the busy streets. The locals were still out; aulk featherfur was largely impervious to weather, and the finfolk loved water. Not many droids; the salt and damp played havoc with their systems. They walked in strange processional through the city to the summit of one of the smaller hills that surrounded the bay. From here, they could see all the way down to the finfolk’s gleaming houses on the shoreline. The aulks preferred to make their roosts on the hills.

“Place of, of.” Lump stopped inside the portico of the building, and checked its translation pad. “Virtue in perigee? Lowest point. Unqueens say, no lower.” It opened the door and went inside, turning on lamps as it went. Dowse, Gantry, and the rest followed it in, out of the rain. The walls were undressed stone, and were hung with portraits. Not portraits, the clones realised as they got closer. Carbonite. Children in carbonite, small frozen faces looking down at them.

“Lump, what is this?” said Gantry, shocked. There had to be hundreds, both aulk and finfolk, dustless and peaceful.

“Soldier,” said Lump, surprising them.

“They’re not soldiers, they’re children,” scoffed Sabot.

“You child soldier,” Lump said, in a voice harsher that they’d known it was capable of. “They our child soldier. Some our child soldier. More other place.”

“What - what happened?”

Their aulk was flipping through its datapad again. “They neotenic. Look young. Hard to fight.”

“What the fuck,” said Dowse. “Because people don’t like shooting children? You made soldiers to look like children?”

“Yes,” fluted the aulk, mournfully. “Lowest point.”

“Fucking hells,” breathed someone else.

“Very bad war. Make land, water unclean, dirty. War stop, first unqueens promise peace, break diadem, kneel,” it went on.

“Mistakes were made?” said Dowse.

“Atomic dirty,” said the aulk. “Atomic in water, in ground. Promise clean place, place for child soldier. Jedi can’t go. Jedi old and sinful.”

“You nuked your moon,” said Sabot. 

“Not place you were,” replied Lump. “Some.”

Gantry laughed. “But our general is too sinful to see even the radioactive bits?”

“Yes,” said Lump. “Too old, too sinful, won’t listen.”

Sabot scoffed. “Jedi don’t sin. No drinking, no drugs, no sex. All monastic repression and earth tones.”

“War crime,” said the aulk, half-hissing. The clones exchanged glances, and decided against defending their absent general’s honour in favour of finding out what the unqueen had said.

“We don’t understand,” said Gantry evenly. “Jedi don’t commit war crimes.”

“No, no, no,” said Lump, its featherfur ruffling up in agitation. “Not commit war crime, use war crime. Use you.”

For a while, there was only the noise of the rain on the stone roof.

“Use us?” said Dowse incredulously. “We’re war crimes?”

“Child soldier, war crime,” Lump said, and added a small mournful trill to the end in its own language.

“Hang on, hang on,” said Gantry. “No, wait, I still don’t get it.”

“I think Lump means our general can’t visit the moon because we’re soldiers?” said Sabot, questioning, and got a head bobble in return.

“Too old, moon for child,” it added. “Only child. You child. Jedi old.”

“Fierfek,” said Dowse. In their experience, people assumed the worst of them; assumed it was the Jedi that leashed their troops into civilised behavior. “Is that why everyone’s so nice to us?”

“Yes!” fluted the aulk. “Penance.” Now they thought about it, none of the small gifts had been given to the Jedi. Every small carving or pastry or bunch of flowers had been given to one of them.

“Thank you,” said Gantry, finally. “Thank you for showing us. Are they - are you going to wake them up? Ever?”

“They ask, when peace, when ground clean,” said the aulk, and made a ritual gesture. “When unqueens crowned, when peace.”

It bowed solemnly to the hall of sleeping children, bowed deeper than it had to the unqueen before turning off the lamps and closing the door. The grey rain seemed to fit the half-light of the early evening, and they followed the aulk back to their billet in silence, alone with their thoughts.

The talks failed. The Jedi General, no longer impassive, and his troops were escorted from the system by an insultingly large shoal of finfolk ships. It’s hard to depose someone from a throne they didn’t hold, that no one wanted. Soon after, the Interregnum closed its borders to the Republic and the Confederacy alike. Rumour said the finfolk pilots would let clones through the cordon, and rumour decided that if the Interregnum wanted those vat-bred abominations, it was welcome to them.


End file.
